1875 VIVISECTION 163 



AS to his general attitude to the subject, it must 

 be noted, as said above in the letter to Sir J. Donnelly, 

 that he never followed any line of research involving 

 experiments on living and conscious animals. Though, 

 as will be seen from various letters, he considered 

 such experiments justifiable, his personal feelings 

 prevented him from performing them himself. Like 

 Charles Darwin, he was very fond of animals, and 

 our pets in London found in him an indulgent master. 



But if he did not care to undertake such experi- 

 ments personally, he held it false sentiment to blame 

 others who did disagreeable work for the good of 

 humanity, and false logic to allow pain to be inflicted 

 in the cause of sport while forbidding it for the 

 cause of science. (See his address on "Instruction 

 in Elementary Physiology," Coll. Essays, iii. 300 seq.) 

 Indeed, he declared that he trusted to the fox-hunt- 

 ing instincts of the House of Commons rather than 

 to any real interest in science in that body, for a 

 moderate treatment of the question of vivisection. 



The subject is again dealt with in " The Progress 

 of Science," 1887 (Coll. Essays, i. 122 seq.), from which 

 I may quote two sentences : 



The history of all branches of science prove that they 

 must attain a considerable stage of development before 

 they yield practical " fruits :) ; and this is eminently true 

 of physiology. 



Unless the fanaticism of philozoic sentiment over- 

 powers the voice of humanity, and the love of dogs and 

 cats supersedes that of one's neighbour, the progress of 

 experimental physiology and pathology will, indubitably, 



